


what an honest job is

by indigostohelit



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Espionage, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9135346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: Cassian’s been on the ground two weeks now. It’s more than long enough; he can feel the fog in his jaw, settling into his bones. K-2SO hasn’t complained of rust yet, but it’s only a matter of time - this planet is all chemicals, corrosive, corroding. He was born into ice; he’s not built for this half-space, cold that isn’t cold, snow that never comes. He’s nearly twenty, now. It's lost its novelty.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Credit is due to [Ezra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodshipophelia/pseuds/goodshipophelia); blame is due to [Gamble.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark)
> 
> Violent things happen in this story - not things graphic enough to be Graphic Depictions of Violence, but not pleasant things. Also, as per the summary, Cassian Andor is nineteen; judge tags accordingly.

The caf is bad, but then, the caf is always bad.

Winter isn’t much on this planet: some rain, a slate sky, a frost that comes in the mornings and is gone by sunup. A fog, which rolls in from the oceans, thick and wet and smelling of salt and shit. Orange moons; a bleak, watery sun. Streetlamps gleaming off the buildings, slick and smooth and strange.

Cassian’s been on the ground two weeks now. It’s more than long enough; he can feel the fog in his jaw, settling into his bones. K-2SO hasn’t complained of rust yet, but it’s only a matter of time - this planet is all chemicals, corrosive, corroding. He was born into ice; he’s not built for this half-space, cold that isn’t cold, snow that never comes. He’s nearly twenty, now. It’s lost its novelty.

Reyca’s on this planet, though, and that’s reason enough to stay.

“This cantina was a poor choice,” says K-2SO, very quietly. He’s standing by the edge of the neighboring building, looking for all the world like an ordinary Imperial droid - he’d sound like it, too, if Cassian could get him to stop talking.

“It’s fine,” says Cassian to his cup. “Do I need to send you back to the ship?”

“I don’t want to go back to the ship,” says K-2SO. “You should have chosen a cantina on the outskirts of the city. There is a twenty-three percent chance of an Imperial droid recognizing your face, and a ninety percent chance of your being connected with the incident on Mygeeto.” A pause. “Also, you should not have chosen outdoor seating.”

“I know that,” says Cassian, and sips his watery caf.

“Mon Mothma says-” says K-2SO.

“ _Fuck_ what Mon Mothma says,” says Cassian, and wishes he hadn’t.

There’s a brief silence. Cassian stares at his cup, at his checkered tablecloth, at the building across the street. It’s something hulking and industrial, windows like spider’s eyes; the metal on it is tarnished, grey.

“You volunteered for this mission,” says K-2SO reproachfully.

“I know,” says Cassian. “I - I know, all right? I did it. I’d do it again. I _know_.”

“Know what?” says a voice, mild, and Cassian goes absolutely still.

“Delos,” he says.

“Andor,” says Reyca, and drop into the seat across from him. Her hair is shorter than it was, and his eyes are bright. “You’ve grown.”

“I tend to do that,” says Cassian, and feels his face split, almost unwillingly, in a grin. “You haven’t.”

“Fuck you, too,” says Reyca, and now she’s smiling, too, and now Cassian can’t help himself, stands up from his chair, takes her hand and pulls her into an embrace.

She’s the one who lets go first, tucks her hands into the pockets of her long coat and regards him with her head tilted to the side. “You _have_ grown, Cassian Andor,” she says. “Look at you, you’ve nearly started on a real mustache. You must be - what, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Nineteen,” says Cassian, and lets himself enjoy her impressed whistle.

“Not so much the kid soldier any more,” she says, “are you.”

“Neither are you,” says Cassian.

Her lips twitch; the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “No, I’m not.”

A pause, while her eyes skate over his face, his jacket, the lump of the blaster in his pocket. “Let’s walk,” she says, and her eyes flick casually towards K-2SO.

“K’s not,” says Cassian, startled, and is about to ask her why she hasn’t been briefed on the droid before he stops himself. “K-2SO’s been reprogrammed,” he says instead, dropping his voice low. “Just a few months we’ve had him, now. He’s not unfriendly ears.”

Reyca purses her lips, raises one eyebrow. “Now _that_ is a story you’ll have to tell me.”

“Cassian,” says K-2SO, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Reyca laughs aloud. After all the years apart, Cassian thinks with a sudden, sharp pang, her laugh is the same: bright and high, just at the edge of cruelty.

“Go wait at the ship, K,” he says.

“Whatever it is you’re doing, Cassian,” says K-2SO, “I don’t like it. And I will _not_ write the report if I’m not accompanying you, and you _will_ have to explain this to your superiors. Not to mention-”

“Your concerns are noted, thanks,” says Cassian shortly. “Go wait at the ship.”

K-2SO hesitates.

“ _Now_ , K,” Cassian snaps.

K-2SO huffs, but he turns, clanks down the street and into the rolling fog. Cassian watches him until he’s out of sight; he can feel Reyca’s gaze on his back, sharp and interested.

“Your superiors, huh,” she says.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” says Cassian, “he’s paranoid, we’re still working out the kinks. Goes off every five minutes - you wouldn’t believe the hassle.”

Reyca raises her eyebrows but doesn’t, thankfully, pry further; it’s been years since Cassian was honestly prone to nervous babbling, but he’d rather not push his limits.

“Let’s walk, anyway,” he says. “You must know all the right neighborhoods, living in this city as long as you’ve been. We can go somewhere no one will ask questions.”

“Far away from where an Imperial droid is a part of the scenery,” says Reyca, and grins with all her teeth. “Good thinking, Andor. Follow me.”

.

“Ten days is longer than I expected,” Cassian says when they’re crossing a mist-slick bridge, all mesh and cobweb-thin handrails. “Anyone would think you don’t want to see your old friends.”

She shrugs, waves a hand. “You know what they tell us. You’ve been told the same, I’m sure. I hear a rumor around the city that a Rebel operative wants to see me, I do my homework, I ask around, I find out who this operative is. I hear it’s some skinny kid from Fest, I think, the Empire’s got me dead to rights, wants to lure me out.”

“Not too many Rebel operatives from Fest wandering around this part of the galaxy,” says Cassian.

“Not too many,” says Reyca. “As far as I know, two.”

Cassian ducks his head, smiles. “I don’t suppose you’ve been back,” he says.

Reyca laughs. “In times like these? Not a chance. You know top brass, how they operate. I’ll be lucky if I see Fest again before I’m sixty.”

“A sixty-year-old spy,” says Cassian, “running out to Fest to embed in a weapons facility. I can see it now.”

They’re off the bridge, now, Cassian’s good black boots slapping onto damp concrete. He can hear Reyca breathing next to him in short sharp huffs; they’re close enough to be almost touching.

“You didn’t come all the way here to tease me, Cassian Andor,” she says. “Come on. What does Mon Mothma want to tell me that she couldn’t write in a briefing?”

Cassian feels his hands curl into fists; he flexes his fingers out immediately, but Reyca - the spy - notices, of course, hums under her breath. “Trouble on the home front?”

“You know top brass,” says Cassian, “how they operate.”

“Don’t I just,” says Reyca; he can hear her grinning. “I’ve heard rumors about you, Andor. If Mygeeto was half what my contacts say it was, I’m sure Mothma was _very_ pleased with your work.”

“She was,” says Cassian shortly.

Reyca hums again, low and curious. “Never figured you’d ever say no to being the teacher’s pet.”

“It’s not a class,” says Cassian. “It’s not - it’s not a _game_. Mygeeto was-” He stops, exhales.

“Two manufacturing facilities in flames,” says Reyca. “Not nothing.”

“Sixty civilian casualties, forty could’ve been prevented,” says Cassian, and immediately regrets it.

Reyca is quiet for some time. Then she says, quiet and horrifyingly pitying, “Oh, Cassian.”

Cassian spreads his arms, doesn’t look at her. “I’ve been doing the job for thirteen years. I can do the damn job.” A pause; a breath. “Mon Mothma was - very pleased.”

The neighborhood they’re in now is quieter, the buildings lower, squatter. Cassian can see insects in the gutters, small and silvery things twitching from raindrop to raindrop; there must be thousands of them, not swarming but beginning to, a shuddering and threadbare carpet of life vanishing wriggling into the drains. The sidewalks are dirty, ash-sticky under Cassian’s feet, the old ghosts of the rainbow-slick sheens that glimmer from corner to corner; the tarnish is crawling up the buildings, licking the shine from their walls. Here the chemical salt-smell of the fog fades to something baser, more organic: sulfur, or sewage, something that lingers at the back of the nose and burns slow and steady.

On other planets, the life dies with the summer. Cassian wants frost, suddenly, so much his bones hurt.

“I thought of you,” says Reyca. “When I left our little soldier-boy soldier-girl club, when they sent me to Hoth and Cato Neimoidia and here. Whenever I saw ice fields, or a kid about your age with dark hair. Before I ever knew you were with the rest on Dantooine, I thought of you.”

“I thought of you, too,” says Cassian.

Reyca sighs; he can feel her breath on his neck. She leans into him, gently, bumps his shoulder with hers. “You’re always going to be a good soldier, Andor,” she says. “I’m sorry about it.”

Cassian lets himself notice - for just a moment - the heat of her next to him; the rhythm of her breath, rise and fall, the color in her cheeks, the life which moves through her body, muscles and veins, lungs and skin.

“Don’t be,” he says, and nods to an alleyway leading off the street and into the shadows. “We’re safe enough? We won’t be noticed, here?”

“Safe as ever,” says Reyca, and ducks into the alleyway, leads Cassian down to the end where the silvery insects flicker and scatter at their steps, and Cassian watches her lean against a wall and cross her arms over her chest, and he sighs, and he runs a hand through his hair, and he smiles at her one last time, and he pulls his blaster out of his coat and points it at her head, and says, “How long have you been reporting to the Empire.”

She stares at him for a long moment. Then she smiles - a little thing, a twitch to her lips and her eyes - and says, “Seven months.”

“What have you told them,” he says.

She shrugs, an elaborate movement. She’s not even flicking her eyes from side to side; her shoulders are slumped, her head back against the wall. “Ship movements. Base locations. Operative names. Whatever I knew. Whatever they wanted to know.”

Cassian breathes in, breathes out. “Why?”

Now she raises her head, grins at him wide and real. “Is that from Mon Mothma, or from you?”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, keeps the blaster steady. She spreads her hands. “The white knight gig’s a dead end, Andor. You and me are going nowhere fast - you know that. Mothma and Organa and their friends will drag this all out to the end of eternity as long as they have cannon fodder to put between the Empire and some dead old idea of what _democracy_ was when they were our age. Did you want to fight last century’s war your whole life?”

Cassian says, “Did you give them my name?”

“No,” says Reyca, and closes her eyes. “No. Never.”

Cassian lowers the blaster.

She opens her eyes as he walks towards her; her face is soft. She holds out her hand, and he takes it, and clutches it tight, and lets his knife comes out of his sleeve, and pushes it gently into her throat.

She fights. She shoves at him; she stomps on his instep, gets her elbow into his solar plexus. She scratches at his eyes, at his hand - manages to get the knife out of her neck, for a moment, send it skittering across his jaw. He pushes it back, uses his body mass to trap her against the wall, gets a grip on the knife with slippery hands, slashes, slashes again. Presses his hands to her neck where the blood is spurting, where the breath is coming in gurgling gasps; squeezes until her blood runs through his fingers and down the backs of his hands, until her eyes slide shut, until her weight collapses against him and the blood slows to a stream, to a trickle, to a stop.

He lowers the body carefully to the ground.

K-2SO looks up when he slams the door of the ship behind him. “Oh, dear,” he says. “Did everything go all right?”

“It’s done,” Cassian says.

“There isn’t a shower on the ship,” says K-2SO, “but we certainly have a fire hose, I would be happy to hose you down. At the very least we could delay while I find you a spare set of clothes.”

“No,” says Cassian, “no, I want to go.” The fog is licking at the windows, blurring the buildings and the streets into haze. This town is all soft edges, Cassian thinks, and behind the edges, a thousand small sharp teeth.

“All right,” says K-2SO, dubious, but he starts the engines, waits for Cassian to settle into his seat and wrap his red wet hands around the controls.

.

It’s autumn on Dantooine, cool and dry. The wind is coming from the west, away from the coast - all dust and sun and woodsmoke, the thick exhaust of the shipyard, dark ashy smells that settle into Cassian’s lungs heavy and hot. The landing strip is alive with droids and pilots, swarming from ship to ground and back again; they scatter from Cassian’s path as he advances, K-2SO a step behind him.

A little droid intercepts him, beeping frantically: _welcome back, Commander Andor, may I show you to your quarters, do you need food, a wash, medical attention, does your ship need care, does -_

Cassian says, “I want to see Mon Mothma.”

 _She’s in a meeting with Senator Bel Iblis at the moment_ , says the droid, _I would be happy to show you to a room to make your report in an hour or so - after a bath, perhaps -_

“I want to see Mon Mothma,” says Cassian, “now.”

“Cassian,” says K-2SO.

“No,” says Cassian, “no, take care of K, that’s what you can do. You can get out of my way, and I’ll go see Mothma myself.”

K-2SO, for the first time Cassian can remember, says nothing. Cassian pushes past the tiny droid, into the base.

The blood is mostly dried, now, flaking off Cassian’s fingers and leaving rust-streaks on the steel of the door. Mon Mothma looks up when the hinges squeal, and Garm Bel Iblis, too, a beat behind her; his face is red, Cassian notes with distant interest, and he’s breathing fast.

“What is this, then?” he says. “Another member of your private army? Did you bother to tell Bail about him, or is he in the dark with the rest of us?”

Mon Mothma is seated at the far end of the room; her robes are pooling around her, and her face is very still.

“I’d like to continue this conversation another time, Senator,” she says.

“I wouldn’t,” says Bel Iblis. A beat passes; he stands, shoves past Cassian and into the hallway.

Mon Mothma fixes Cassian with her gaze, cool and steady. “You’re here to make a mission report,” she says.

“A mission report,” says Cassian, and hears himself laugh without meaning to. “Yes. A mission report. The job is done and Reyca Delos is dead.”

Now she stands, now she moves toward him, a pillar of light in the dimness of the chamber. Now she says, “I wondered why you volunteered for this mission.”

“This mission,” says Cassian, and, “the - the _mission_ ,” and, “Allow me the _fucking_ dignity of murdering my own friends.”

She’s still, now; he can’t quite see her face in the shadows. He steps towards her, out of hte doorway, says, “You knew. I knew when I left Dantooine that you knew. You knew I knew her, and you didn’t say a goddamn word to me, not one word of advice or concern or fucking - thought that I might defect, that I might ever, _ever_ choose her over - this.”

She looks at him, says nothing, says nothing.

“Is this - some fucking game, to you?” he snaps. “Some academic exercise in what to do when a republic falls? Have you spent a day in your _life_ out of your Senate robes - have you spent a day in your life with the shit and guts of the Rebellion you started, do you-” He gasps a breath, takes a step towards her. “Do you even know whose blood this is?”

“I know,” says Mon Mothma, quiet.

“You know,” says Cassian, sharp and sarcastic, “you know, you fucking knew,” and reaches out a hand, blood on his knuckles and blood under his nails, to her cool white dress.

And stops.

She’s watching him; she’s very still. He’s struck, suddenly, by the line of her neck, smooth and bare and empty, and her eyes: blue, like ice in the dark.

His hand is shaking.

She steps towards him, until his hand is touching her shoulder. Farther, so the red-brown streaks across it, and she takes his other hand and raises it to her lips.

When she puts it down, there’s blood at the corners of her mouth, flakes on her chin. Cassian tries to breathe, can’t, suddenly; can’t do anything but look at her looking at him, silent, with frost-colored eyes.

She leans forward, then, and kisses him: once on each cheek, and once on the lips, long and cool and sweet.

He stumbles back, when she lets go of him, finds a chair behind his legs and lets his knees fold. She watches him go; she’s smiling, small and sad.

He says, “Was there anything else you needed me for?”

She closes her eyes; “I need you for a thousand things, Commander,” she says. “But I won’t keep you any longer than you want to stay. You can go home, now.”

“All right,” says Cassian, and stays, and stays.


End file.
